Contents

Introduction

This research was commissioned by the Scottish Government in
September 2016 to examine the role of the safeguarder in the
children's hearings system from the perspectives of six key
stakeholder groups: safeguarders, sheriffs, panel members,
reporters, social workers and solicitors who represent children and
parents / carers. Its aims were:

1. "to identify and quantify the added value that safeguarders
bring to decisions relating to children and young people in
children's hearings proceedings from the perspective of
practitioners and professionals (including safeguarders
themselves)"; and

2. "to inform future development and support requirements for
the role of safeguarder within the children's hearings system
through delivering an understanding of how the role of a
safeguarder is perceived in practice and how the role impacts on
decision-making, both positively and negatively".

The specific research questions were:

to explore how the current system of safeguarding operates,
and is managed, from all agency perspectives;

to elicit safeguarder and other agency perspectives of the
role and effectiveness of safeguarders and how that role
interacts/overlaps with other key roles in the children's
hearings system;

to identify the skills and qualifications deemed essential to
the effectiveness of the safeguarder role; and

to identify the type and extent of management, support and
training needs currently in place and potentially required to
ensure the future effectiveness of the safeguarder role and
safeguarder panel.

The rationale for the research was to gather evidence to inform
the future development of the role of the safeguarder and its place
within the overall hearings system by identifying the added value
of the role in promoting better decisions, and outcomes, for
children.

In 2013, under the auspices of the Children's Hearings
(Scotland) Act 2011 ('the 2011 Act') responsibility for safeguarder
recruitment, appointment and administration was transferred from
local authorities to the Scottish Ministers and a national
voluntary organisation, Children 1
st, was contracted to set up and administer a national
Safeguarders Panel. In September 2016, the Scottish Government
commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake this
study.

There have been two such previous studies:
The Role of the Safeguarder in Scotland (Hill
et al, 2000) and
Safeguarders Research (Gadda
et al, 2015). As in the 2000 study, the current research
team was able to conduct interviews with sheriffs and to include
them in the data collected through a questionnaire, thereby
offering some further information on the safeguarder role in court
proceedings. This current project has also been able to consider
some aspects of the framework put in place by Children 1
st to promote consistency and quality in performance of
the role. Other than those two previous research reports, there is
little academic discussion of the role. The Scottish Government has
also published
Practice Notes on the Role of the Safeguarder (Scottish
Government, 2016) which is a comprehensive statement, for
safeguarders themselves, of the work which they should undertake
and a statement on the
Practice Standards for Safeguarders (Scottish Government,
2015).